How To Improve Your Interviewing

Beginning

The face-to-face meeting between you and the candidate is only part of the process of interviewing. Most of the hard work (the background and the basics) necessary to ensure a successful interview is done prior to that event. Every interview, and every subsequent hire, is a tremendous opportunity to raise the overall performance of your organization.

Here are the four essential components of the interviewing process.

1. Define the job accurately
   • Update the job requirements constantly
   • Know the skills and talents required
   • Prepare a complete and thorough job description
   • Provide the job description to the candidate prior to the interview if possible
2. Evaluate the resume fully
   • Allow time to review the resume just prior to the interview session
   • Highlight resume information you wish to inquire about
   • Read and understand what the applicant is saying
   • Do not assume anything
   • Prepare and practice an exhaustive list of performance-based and personality-based questions
3. Ask the right questions effectively
   • Ask and then listen (asking takes 20% and listening should be 80%)
   • Develop your questions well in advance (50 or so should be beneficial)
   • Relate those questions to the requirements of the job
   • Ask a series of questions to probe past the initial responses. Don’t just ask a question … follow up!
   • Ask questions related to how they would do something when it is related to the candidate’s success on the job
4. Keep score and quantify the results
   • Ensures accurate tracking of the candidates
   • Document the candidate’s responses for future reference
   • Use a quantifiable rating system to support your decisions

Quantifiable: to be able to be counted and represented by a numeric figure. Score each question using a 1 to 5 score and then assign a priority or weighting to each area. Give more weighting to the most important elements of the job. Multiply the score by the weight and you have their score for that area. Add all the areas together and you have given each candidate a numerical rating that is more objective than subjective. That which cannot be quantified is just a good guess.

The information is examples of how to develop a single idea you want to explore then creating primary, secondary, and tertiary questions in order to probe the candidates ability to do the job. The key is the idea you are trying to determine by asking these questions.

Adaptability

1. How do you establish working relationships with new people?
   • Key: Do they take an active or passive role?
   • Secondary: Why would you take that role?
   • Tertiary: What would be your desired outcome?
2. If I were to offer you this position, how do you imagine that you would spend your first two weeks?
   • Key: Will they assume a teaching role or a learning role?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel that you should proceed that way?
   • Tertiary: What would you hope to gain by this?
3. Please tell me about the most difficult job-related task you have faced.
   • Key: Does the candidate show an ability to overcome diversity? What is the candidates
   • definition of “most difficult”?
   • Secondary: Why was this the most difficult?
   • Tertiary: What could have been done to prevent it? What changes were made as a result of it?

Experience

1. Please tell me about a specific area of responsibility that you have enjoyed.
   • Key: Is what they enjoy related to the position you have to offer?
   • Secondary: Why, specifically, did you enjoy this?
   • Tertiary: What did you gain from this experience?
2. What have you learned from the jobs you’ve had?
   • Key: Do they actively learn and carry the knowledge to a new position?
   • Secondary: Why was this learning important to you?
   • Tertiary: What would you like to learn from this new position?
3. Relative to the position that we are offering, please tell me about your experience.
   • Key: Is the candidate able to tie the two together, or are they unsure of the connection?
   • Secondary: Why do you think that your experience would benefit the department or company?
   • Tertiary: What additional experience do you hope to gain from this position?

Interpersonal Skills

1. How do you criticize subordinates?
   • Key: Do they criticize behavior or person?
   • Secondary: How have you responded when criticism has failed to produce the desired results?
2. How important was communication and interaction with others in your last job?
   • Key: What was their level of involvement, and how similar is it to the new position?
   • Secondary: Why did you feel this level of communication was important?
   • Tertiary: What could have been done to improve the level of communication?
3. When, in a professional setting, were you the member or a leader of a team?
   • Key: What is the candidate’s definition of a team, and are your corporate needs the same?
   • Secondary: Why was this team successful or unsuccessful?
   • Tertiary: What types of communication were important to the team’s success?

Initiative

1. What steps have you taken to enable you to become more effective in your position?
   • Key: Will the candidate be able to recite a list, or will they struggle to come up with something?
   • Secondary: Why did you feel that you should take these steps?
   • Tertiary: What rewards have you experienced as a result of these steps?
2. Tell me about a time when you had to go “above and beyond” the call of duty.
   • Key: What does the candidate define as “above and beyond”?
   • Secondary: Why did you do it?
   • Tertiary: What was the ultimate benefit to you?
3. Would you rather design and develop plans and procedures or implement and manage them?
   • Key: Is the candidate more of an innovator or implementor?
   • Secondary: Why do you find that choice more rewarding?
   • Tertiary: What specific tasks have you been responsible for or involved in that fits this choice?

Stability

1. How would you define a successful career?
   • Key: Does the candidate include longevity or commitment? Is the candidate internally or externally motivated?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel this is successful?
   • Tertiary: What actions are required to be successful?
2. Where do you think you would like to be in three to five years?
   • Key: How realistic is the candidate?
   • Secondary: Why would you like to be in that position?
   • Tertiary: How do you think that you will get there?
3. What is your overall impression of your current employer?
   • Key: Is the candidate positive or bitter?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel this way?
   • Tertiary: What could your employer do to alter your impressions?

Integrity

1. Give me three adjectives that others would use to describe you.
   • Key: Will the candidate be honest and share faults?
   • Secondary: Why do you think that they would choose these?
   • Tertiary: What are the three areas in which people would say you need to improve?
2. Can you define integrity for me?
   • Key: Will the answer include words like: honesty, trustworthy and dependable?
   • Secondary: Why would you choose these adjectives?
   • Tertiary: What past situations in the workplace have involved integrity?
3. How would you respond if you discovered a coworker using corporate long distance for personal calls?
   • Key: Will the candidate go to the person or to management or would they take any action at all?
   • Secondary: Why would you respond that way?
   • Tertiary: What other situations would prompt the same response?

Competence

1. How did you gain your knowledge of this industry/company?
   • Key: Did they pursue it, or was it a matter of chance?
   • Secondary: Why are you continuing along this career path?
   • Tertiary: What major changes do you see in the future?
2. Other than the ones required, what skills do you have that you feel could enhance this position?
   • Key: Is the candidate talking over their head, or do they appear to possess these skills?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel those skills are important?
   • Tertiary: What value do you think they will provide?
3. What do you know about our organization?
   • Key: Are they aware of the competition in the industry?
   • Secondary: Why have you decided to apply for this position?
   • Tertiary: What other industry leaders are you familiar with?

Managability

1. What have you been criticized for in the past two years?
   • Key: Will the candidate accept responsibility for the criticism?
   • Secondary: Why did you make the decision that resulted in the criticism?
   • Tertiary: What was your response to the criticism?
2. Describe your most ideal and least ideal boss.
   • Key: Do you match either of these descriptions?
   • Secondary: Why did you like or dislike these attributes?
   • Tertiary: What did you do to change those you liked least?
3. When you are confronted with an unprecedented decision, what do you do?
   • Key: Will they discuss it, wait for approval or take action?
   • Secondary: Why would you proceed that way?
   • Tertiary: What other options would you see in this situation?

Attitude

1. Tell me about an accomplishment that you are truly proud of.
   • Key: What level of accomplishment does the candidate view as meaningful?
   • Secondary: Why does this one mean so much for you?
   • Tertiary: What effect has this had on your ongoing performance?
2. What makes an individual successful?
   • Key: Will the candidate describe their own attributes?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel that these make someone successful?
   • Tertiary: What are the primary reasons that people fail?
3. What motivates you to improve and progress in your career?
   • Key: Are they self-directed or do they require motivation from others?
   • Secondary: Why are you motivated by these things?
   • Tertiary: What demotivates you?

Maturity

1. What does your current supervisor do to get the best out of you?
   • Key: Does the supervisor have to do something, or can you rely on the candidate’s maturity for motivation?
   • Secondary: Why do these methods work for you?
   • Tertiary: What does your supervisor do that interferes with giving your best?
2. Have you had to make and/or implement an unpopular policy or decision?
   • Key: Does the candidate have the emotional maturity to deal with low popularity?
   • Secondary: Why did you make the decision or support the decision?
   • Tertiary: What was the outcome of the decision or policy? Did achieve what you intended?
3. What professional situations cause you to feel awkward?
   • Key: Will the candidate refer to office politics or political situations?
   • Secondary: Why are you uncomfortable in this setting?
   • Tertiary: What actions do you take to prevent these situations?

Emotional Control

1. Give me an example of a crisis situation you were involved in.
   • Key: What is the severity of a situation the candidate sees as a crisis?
   • Secondary: Why was this a crisis situation?
   • Tertiary: What did you do after it was resolved?
2. Tell me about a time when you got very angry in the workplace.
   • Key: What is the level of anger that the candidate views as very angry?
   • Secondary: Why did you get this angry?
   • Tertiary: What actions did you take to resolve your anger?
3. Has there been a time when another’s anger was misdirected at you?
   • Key: How does the candidate react to “misdirected” anger?
   • Secondary: Why do you think that you were the recipient?
   • Tertiary: What did you do? How did you resolve it?

Values

1. How would you spend $2500 if the company were to give it to you to spend as you see fit?
   • Key: Will they spend it on self-gratification or self-improvement?
   • Secondary: Why would you spend it this way?
   • Tertiary: What would you hope to gain by spending it this way?
2. When will you know that you have made it?
   • Key: Will the candidate have a final destination or never be satisfied?
   • Secondary: Why do you feel this way?
   • Tertiary: What are you doing to get there?
3. Related to the workplace, what are your avocational interests?
   • Key: Are they intellectual or recreational?
   • Secondary: Why do you enjoy these?
   • Tertiary: What would you hope to add to the list?

Now you have seen many questions that would help discern some piece of information. It is time for you to begin creating the same basic questions for you organization then making it more appropriate for each job within the organization. Good luck and let us know if we can help!